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they really couldn't go after him even if they wanted to. the rats would all start squealing on there buddy's witch would be the whole lot of them. the only way to get rid of these guys is to stop voting for them. and if that does not work with guns.

and what happens if everyone votes and they are still there? is the minority going to bring arms against majority to have it your way? is that a democracy?
Im just challenging your thinking there, that's quite a jump.

what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it's natural manure.

Stop prostrating yourself at the feet of the founding fathers. They were men, not gods. They did a pretty decent job, all things considered, but they don't have all the answers. And if you find you must follow the teachings of some old dead guy instead of analyzing situations for yourself, then why Jefferson? Why not Gandhi, or Jesus? They might tell you to do something very different.

It is topical and relevant to the conversation. The American Founding Fathers were inundated by intrests other than what they though was right. They wrote down their experiences and came up with the best way they knew how to make sure divide and conquer tactics would not work. The people could decide amongst themselves their destinations in their own lives and with whom they wished to travel with. This is shown by the First Amendment.

While not being from the US but close by I can understand why people would refrence the American Founding Fathers in a time where the same issues they face are being encountered today.

Or, you know, he could just be choosing a quote that matches his personal views because it happens to put them over well, and of course suggests that famous and generally respected people share his ideas.

And THAT my friends is another example of a fallacy. In this case the false dichotomy.

The poster is attempting to imply that to reject the fallacy of call-to-authority one must reject anything learned from another person, implying that all knowledge is either brand new or a call to authority.

That is of course, a false dichotomy as those are NOT the only types of knowledge that exists. There is also knowledge backed up by empirical evidence. There are arguments founded on solid logical principles and valid conclusions - and that's just two other kinds.

The point of the call to authority fallacy is to teach us, when evaluating an idea that:It's not about who said it, it's about whether what was said is a good argument.To judge the merit of the claim not the merit of the speaker. Why ? Because wise people still say stupid shit sometimes.

Or maybe they knew about oppressive regimes more than you do. After all, they wrote a very successful constitution, with all the safeguards built in against the slow roll to a Nazi state we experience today. The history repeats itself.

Most Americans have not experienced being ruled by iron fist, nor did their parents or even grandparents to tell the story. Go live in Myanmar or Belarus, and come back when you start to appreciate the slowly melting paradise built for you by the first generations of refugees.

I just re-read the letter which that quote is taken from. Thomas Jefferson was saying that while these rebels were ignorant and misinformed, they were correct to rebel on the basis of what they understood and that it would be bad for the country if a time ever arose where people did not rebel when they had such understandings of what was going on, even if those understandings where wrong. He was saying that the government must know that if it allows the populace to develop such misconceptions, the populace will rebel. The fact of the matter is. our government has discovered that when the American people of today believe similar abuses of power are occurring they will not rise up in rebellion. Once it became apparent that the people would not rise up in rebellion against the misperception of abuse of power, it was only a short time until those in power, rather than attempt to show the people that they were not so abusing their power, began to actually abuse their power in the manner which people had beforehand misperceived them to do.

Excuse me for butchering the quote, "democracy is two wolves and a sheep discussing what's for dinner, in a republic the sheep gets a shotgun." Since we live in a republic, it seem to be spot on. Not that I agree with it, but sometimes the majority is wrong. Guns probably won't really help solve it in the long run though, lots of guns might.

So why don't we do ask this again - and better people then me should phrase it - but this time asking if they think "that type of corruption has is occuring" and "if Chriss Dodd 's actions are aligned with the morals of the administration"? Is this "a cockroach you see", among the thousands we don't? What is the white house's stance on money in politics, and have they investigated others, during the this administration? Who is analyzing finances and trends to spot inconsistencies? Are there any active investigations of this at present?

it's wrong to just not answer, when they could have made a statement, avoiding the issue of guilt. That's a cop out, and i expect more.

Chris Dodd is hardly the only politician who has done such a thing, and there is currently no law against it unless there is an actual promised payment (even Delay/Gingrich have been smart enough to avoid that). Some might argue that there should be laws against such 'retirement plans' for politicians, but it would be hard to enforce, and likely unconstitutional. There are however laws against money laundering and using foreign bank accounts for tax evasion, perhaps Mitt has been completely honest, perhaps not. As 'we' all know, online polls are easy to game, it wouldn't be hard to ask them to investigate using a couple of thousand email addresses.

Whenever the GOP is in power they seem to spend more time grandstanding for political advantage than doing the work of the people (for example, 'where's that jobs bill?').

...[people who vote] are brainwashed [into thinking] the government will make everything better despite them always making it worse right in front of them

Caution; answering "no" to any of the following questions may reveal that it's you who has been brainwashed into denying what is right in front of you...

Do you really think a public sewerage system is worse than emptying your bedpan on the street?
Do you really think chlorinated water is worse than cholera and dysentery?
Do you really think crossing a public bridge is worse than travelling 200miles out of your way to ford a river?

Disclaimer: I have been homeless but I've never been so mindless as to take government mandated 'luxuries' for granted.

Your little idealistic plea is nice and all, but I hope you see that you're perpetuating the system.

Prosecuting one person is a good place to start at ending the systematic corruption. Whining about it and trying to divide attention makes it less likely that anything concrete will ever get started. That's why it's good to "point fingers at one guy". I don't think there's a single person that thinks all of the corruption in the entire system is due to one guy, but we need to direct attention somewhere.

I know it won't make you feel any better, but those of us living (and voting) here in the US feel the same way. When all you have to vote for is the lesser of two evils, you still wind up with electing evil. Not every political race deserves such a jaded attitude, but enough of them do to bork the system.

You obviously ain't never been to the south son. Come on down to meth alley sometime, here we got three kinds of elected officials, we got the greedy little shits, power hungry little shits, and just plain vicious little shits. Why do you think so many elected officials are for the drug war? because they are making out like fucking bandits off it, that's why. Money is power and power corrupts and thanks to the drug trade even little towns can have plenty of power to be had.

The system is composed of individuals. If you can drag the corruption of individuals out into the public and hold them responsible, you can make others think twice (or more) about their own actions. If reform is to come, it must come one step at a time. It is simply wishful thinking to believe the entire system can be fixed all at once. The starting point is to take individuals to task for their actions. Once that starts happening, you can think about working on the system as a whole. You drag out enough of the corrupt individuals, you will already have a good start on fixing the system.

If you only work on fixing the system, the still-corrupt individuals will find ways around, somehow. They always do (they always have).

Exactly as I predicted when everybody here on Slashdot was insisting the would HAVE TO act.

This is Obama, he need only make the promise. He doesn't have to DO anything.

Are you seriously suggesting there should be a criminal investigation against anyone where 25,000 people call for it?

This has nothing to do with Obama. it has everything to do with Federal prosecutors. Write a letter to both the FBI and the US Attorney's Office stating that you believe a crime has been committed that is within their jurisdiction and requesting they investigate. 25,000 letters like that might achieve something.

Your comment is the typical Democrat response. Here we have a story about a Democrat who is refusing to investigate another Democrat. Your response? You bad mouth Republicans. Of course, like Obama and all other Democrats, you are incapable of criticizing them, no matter how wrong they are.

If Dodd were a Republican, the investigation would have been complete long ago, no petitions needed, and you would get first post saying that this is proof positive that Republicans are corrupt.

Let's not pretend that this is a partisan issue. Obama wouldn't investigate illegal activities of the former Republican administration. In fact, he retained many of Bush's people despite running on a platform of "change".
Republicans and Democrats are different sides to the same coin. They have no interest in stopping corruption.

Partisan politics operating under colour of Democracy is an abject failure in its theory but NONE OF YOU SHEEP CAN SEE IT.

What Partisan politics do is polarise one group of people against another - much as what we're seeing here. RvD, two sides fighting each other instead of fighting the REAL ENEMY which is the criminal element RUNNING YOUR COUNTRY.

What changes when the regime changes?

NOTHING.

Why?

The promises might be slightly different, but the endgames in any case are EXACTLY THE SAME. Gain at the expense of EVERYBODY ELSE.

Fuck you lot, as long as you keep consuming and breeding more consumers and continue to buy into the Great Fiscal Lie, then the 1% will continue to divide you and they will continue to control you, all the time further abrogating your rights previously guaranteed by a two hundred fifty-odd year old piece of parchment!

Because Cheney built up an impressive array of "civil servants" (much like in Torchwood) that are all unelected, highly powerful people. Obama really couldn't do the job without them... Cheney and Rumsfield go all the way back to Nixon. They made impressive gains at shaking out the upper and middle military ranks of officers "disloyal" to the PNAC agenda, along with a few high profile firings, and throwing opponents from their OWN party under the bus as an example.

In short, Bush was part in creating a stitation where a large part of upper government is established for the next 20 years. There is really little Obama can responsibly do at this point... Fire half the generals during a war? Most of the upper Executive agencies were "packed" in the ranks with people aligned with Cheney's agenda.

The biggest indicator for me was how in the middle of a "war" the President didn't groom ANYBODY from his OWN party to continue the work? You really gotta hand it to them.

Philosophically, this is where Neo-Cons are using their "corporate" attitude so they don't have to worry about elections to advance their agenda. Fill the CIA with leaders that will report a "terrorist" under every rock, and the current President has to act on "expert" advice.. The same tounges quiet to Bush's foibles will wag to the press about Obama in a minute. It plays right into the Democrats ideal that people in government want the "best" for "everybody" but they have been played since Clinton and even Carter by the other side packing the ranks of people that are supposed to be experts and non-partisian.

Obama is a fucking Republican you retard. What the fuck does the mainstream Democratic party call someone who is pro-war, pro-surveillance, pro-dronebombing, pro-due-process-free-detention, pro-due-process-free-execution, pro-goldman-sachs, pro-protecting-torturers, pro-persecuting-whistleblowers, pro-PATRIOT-Act... if Obama is the lesser evil, then lets just get it done with now by getting the greater evil in -- that we can have a revolution sooner and get back to being America. Obama's brand of lesser evil is so fucking evil it makes me want to spit.

Obama is a Republican circa 1990. Modern Republicans add pro-corporate-personhood, anti-Medicare, anti-Social-Security, anti-taxes-of-any-kind (except sales taxes since they target the working class), anti-regulation, anti-intellectual, pro-occupation (very different from the Libya war), and so on to the list.

The entire country has moved to the right. Democrats are where the Republicans used to be, and Republicans are out in Crazy Town (pop. Way Too Many).

The entire country has moved to the right. Democrats are where the Republicans used to be, and Republicans are out in Crazy Town (pop. Way Too Many).

Actually, there's a massive disconnect between the politicians and the people of the United States. If the country were majority rule, which it isn't, marijuana would be legalized, gay marriage would be legal in more places, we would be completely out of Afghanistan and Iraq (not the "we're out, but there are drones and 15,000 soldiers / mercenaries to... uh... protect our embassy" version), many congresspersons would be indicted for bribery, many many banking executives (as well as some other corporate executives) would be indicted for multi-billion dollar fraud, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau would be operating with full force, thousands of foreclosures would be ruled invalid and the people's homes restored, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange would be free, and there'd quite possibly be a massive public works program to keep people employed.

And that's why both the Tea Party and the Occupiers exist - the system is failing to respond to what the people want.

Whether or not you think so, the actual data says otherwise:* Marijuana legalization [gallup.com] recently crossed 50% support.* Gay marriage [gallup.com], which has been steadily shifting in favor of legalization.* Leaving Afghanistan [pollingreport.com] polls at 56% in favor, and has for months.* Iraq War [pollingreport.com] polls at 66% opposed, and the majority has been opposed to the war since at least 2006.

The only presidential candidate who even comes close to following the majority's wishes on those issues is Ron Paul, and he's generally been dismissed as a nutcase.

So as someone from outside (I'm Canadian), I've come to the conclusion that the US will only solve it's issues that way. I'm truly saddened by it, and I hope it's quick and mostly bloodless, but I doubt it will be.

I know it's not a popular idea, but you have to admit: the level of vitriol in the USA has hit unbelievable levels. It makes my head hurt - for both of the major parties. You don't have political options any more - the only one that is an ACTUAL choice away from more of the same is Ron Paul. Too bad he's so far out to lunch. You're headed towards civil war. And right now all the religions folks have all the guns. Oh the irony.

I wish you the best of luck. Please, keep your military out of it, and protect your nukes while you sort this shiat out.

It's interesting that outsiders can see the inevitability of civil war isn't it?

The level of hate, spite, vitriol and absolute us/them divide is obvious for all to see.

Tiny issues, of no importance, or consequence, are raised to absolute exreme/hate issues. Devicive language, militarized police, extreme violence, ethnic hatred, extreme paranoia, social chaos, endless multiple wars, extremes in poverty/wealth and perverse legal and ethical injustice. There is no middle ground, its all one side or the other.

It has ticked every single box for catastrophic upheaval.

Frankly, I will be glad. The USA as an idea has failed its people and I'm tired of the US's enforced exported culture. It is vile.

Perhaps, AC, you struggle from reading English. It is blunt from my text, and the OP that we are not American, nor do we live in the USA.

Your language and absolute rejection of critique and the nature of it is EXACTLY my point.

Nobody here "hates" the USA. We despise the one eyed ignorant and devicive viewpoints.

Maybe you have trolled me. Point struck then, sir, but I suspect you are a typical citizen.....And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.

Don't be stupid. As soon as bullets start flying, the country is dead. It won't come back in your lifetime, or your kids' lifetimes for that matter. Technological advancement has brought us easily available explosives, which make clean revolutions absolutely impossible. So long as even 0.001% of the population doesn't like the new government, they can just start slaughtering people to force a change. The only reason they don't do so now is because it's seen as "unacceptable" and would be counterproduct

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Revolution is our birthright as American citizens. Bloodless if possible, bloody if necessary. It is obvious that our government has been twisted against the people it is supposed to be representative of.

I don't want to hurt anyone, but I will not be a victim. This isn't Iraq, and we're not terrified villagers living in stone age conditions. The people have been asleep for a long time, lulled into a false sense of security by greed and manipulation, but they're finally beginning to wake up, and it's about fucking time...

It seems clear to me now that the last shred of what made this country great died on 9/11. The terrorists attacked us, but we finished the job all on our own.

You think the Iraqis were "terrified villagers living in stone age conditions" prior to our showing up? How fucking clueless can you be?

You're being melodramatic and angsty because it's fun to imagine yourself as a freedom fighter up against some great evil. Let's introduce some perspective. We're talking about some asshole senator who was bribed to help a few companies make more money off of us. Do you have any idea how often that has happened throughout our history? Can you name a single fucking decade in which that has not happened?

But no, rather than accept that the country will always be messy and that we should do the best we can, you want to burn it all down. You want to kill because Hollywood has taught you that violence can solve all your problems. The scrappy rebels always win and ride off into the sunset.

But no, rather than accept that the country will always be messy and that we should do the best we can, you want to burn it all down.

No, I will not accept that. You want people to just shrug their shoulders and say "Meh, shit's fucked up, shit's always been fucked up, so fuck it?" Bullshit all over that. You be as complacent as you fucking want. I know we can do better.

I don't want it to come to that point, I really don't. But like I said, I will not be a victim. I'm not going to sit idly by and watch our right to privacy be taken away, our right to free speech taken away, our right to freely move about the country taken away, our right to be secure both in our person and property taken away. Our own government has been doing this to us at a fever pitch for the last fucking decade, not fucking Al Qaeda, not Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein, not Iran, not China. This was our own fucking government doing this bullshit, across all three branches, and the people just repeated the same old litany "Well, if it makes us safer..."

Fuck that bullshit. No more. Put your hands over your ears and keep repeating "it's not that bad, it's not that bad, it's not that bad..." if that's what you want to do, but forgive me and the millions of other people that actually believe in something better for not being quite ready to bend over and get fucked with the rest of the cattle.

Sorry, but have you ever hear the little song behind the word "jingoism"?

We don't want to go to war but by Jingo if we doWe've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too

That's how you're coming across. "I don't want to kill people to get my way, but..."

Things in this country aren't bad enough to warrant the sort of massive, decades long bloodshed you're talking about. Not even close. We can turn things around through peaceful means. You're looking at one tiny slice of history and declaring that this is the worst things have ever been. It's not. Not even close.

Not long ago, a huge portion of the country was treated as subhuman while our leaders were playing with the idea of wiping out human civilization. We got through that, and we can sure as hell get through this. The only thing we need is the will to try. If all the people who have given up on politics were to get off their asses and vote in the general election AND THE PRIMARIES then we could fix this all in short order. But instead they figure that their one vote won't make a difference and so they don't bother. And then when their non-vote doesn't elicit change, they decide that the whole system is FUBAR'ed and start talking about mass murder to solve their problems. Can you really not see how stupid and self-defeating that is?

To get my way? I just want to be left the fuck alone! I want the government to stop listening in on my fucking phone calls, stop scraping my instant messages, stop trying to give me the fucking finger in the ass routine every time I have the audacity to get on an airplane, stop handing over my fucking tax dollars to goddamned Wall Street bankers, stop allowing these parasites we call "corporations" to put slaves across the world to work and bring their wares here for nothing while 1 in 5 of us are either unemployed or underemployed, stop allowing our infrastructure here to fucking fall apart while we're helping other countries build....

The government has been wiping it's ass with the Bill of Rights for decades, but the last few years or so they've been ramping up. They see the writing on the wall. They know the jig is up, so they're making their last ditch cash/power grabs while enough people still have the faith in their government necessary to facilitate it. Once that's gone, it's all over. The locusts will pick up and move on to greener pastures while we fucking eat each other. The Occupy protests are going to look like a block party a year from now.

I understand your point, I really do, but I truly believe it's too late for that now. We're stuck in a positive feedback loop. There's only going to be more civil disobedience, resulting in more of our rights being taken away, resulting in more civil disobedience, resulting in more rights taken away, resulting in more civil disobedience...you get my point. You may not share my opinions, but to be honest, I'd rather be prepared for that eventuality than not, and since buying more than 7 days worth of food or owning multiple guns is probably enough to get you on some government watch list (if me simply talking about my extreme dissatisfaction with my government as of late isn't enough), I'm probably fucked. But I am not going to be a victim.

It's not too late at all. We still have free elections. We can protest without the tanks rolling in. If you pay attention, then you saw what happened when the Iranians tried to have an election, and when they tried to protest. They are past the point of no return. We're not. But we will be if you get your civil war.

You could go out and get involved in activism. Find candidates who you trust, and push for them in primaries. They'll need to wear the brandname of one of the two political parties, but that's just a label. You can make a difference. It's just hard as hell.

Hollywood has conditioned us to want fast answers, typically through violence. No problem takes more than a few hours to resolve, and most can be resolved by shooting someone. That's not how real life works. It will take many years to climb out of the hole dug over the past few decades. But a civil war will take even longer, and be far less pleasant. You need to wrap your head around that. You've never lived though the sort of violent social upheaval you're describing, so maybe it's hard for you to imagine it. But look around the world. Take a good hard look at other countries that have undergone civil war in the past twenty years or so. Ask yourself if life in America is really worse than life in Iran or Iraq or Somalia or the Congo or Moldova or Sri Lanka.

This "bullet box" rhetoric needs to end. The people who mod it up should be ashamed of themselves, and the people who post it ought to be on government watch lists.

So, people saying what you don't like needs to put people on secret lists so they can be abused by the government while going about their legal business. Gotcha. I think I can see why you're not OK with the original idea.

How about this: you don't deserve the freedom to post what you just did, and I think you need to be put on a list for conspiring to commit treason (by advocating violation of the constitution). If you can start deciding what is allowed, so can I. See how it works? Grow a brain.

One major goal of government, including the United States' government, is to maintain peace. People who stir up calls of violence, rather than peaceful protests, should be watched and discouraged. It is unacceptable for that discouragement to involve censorship, just as it is unacceptable for a petition to involve explosives.

Unfortunately, the mere mention of any investigation makes the short-fuse radicals even more enraged. Nevermind that the goal is usually "see if this guy's dangerous", the person in question will often see it as a terrible threat, and will actively antagonize the police. The anti-establishment culture is as much responsible for our recent loss of freedoms as the legislature who sees increasing threats of violence.

You may have fought for something, all right, but it wasn't for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

At least not for you and me.

Well I can tell you it definitely wasn't for YOU! The government's reasons for doing things frequently don't align with the individual's. I was a Marine in GHWB's Gulf War. From a government perspective it was definitely about oil. To me, those would have been unlawful orders, except that I saw what Hussein did to the people of Kuwait. THAT is why I served, sir. Our family friend that we wave to daily as he strolls by in his wheelchair didn't lose his legs in the current Iraq venture because of GWB's daddy complex, he did it because he believed he was trying to help the Iraqi people, because he believed (however misguided it may be) that he was helping to keep our liberties safe. He paid for it with loss of use of half of his body, at the hands of the very people he was trying to help.

Hmmm... You do realize that the same Iraqis that put your neighbour in a wheelchair "did it because they believed they were trying to help the Iraqi people, because they believed (however misguided it may be) that they were helping to keep their liberties safe", right? You should also realize that, objectively, they had a better justification than you did, because they were fighting an invader on their homeland.

And to have some cumstain POS like you denigrate the sacrifice that he made makes my blood boil!

Your resorting to anger, name calling and srawman arguments are classical symptoms of cognitive dissonance. You should consider stopping throwing tantrums and starting addressing the issues.

For the record, the AC did not denigrate anything. He did state that whatever you (and by extension, your neighbour) were fighting for had absolutely no positive effect on "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in your country (that little "At least not for you and me" part that you neglected to include in your quoting). Personally, I happen to agree with him.

But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the people who fought (and continue to fight in Afghanistan), even the ones who committed some awful acts, did it out of a love for their country, for their fellow citizens, and for the principles that they represent (regardless of how far we may come from actually attaining them).

I would very much like to know which principles exactly justified this [wikipedia.org].

They did it for you and me and the Iraqi/Afghan people.

No, they didn't. Some of them (maybe even most of them) believed that they were doing it for those stated reasons, while some of them used it as a convenient excuse.

It's real easy to take a stand against something from the cozy confines of the internet, but you best drag your ass out there and do it in the real world before you decide to slander several million Americans who put their countrymen before themselves.

The AC made a statement. Do you have anything (other than jingoistic fervour) to counter it?

little boys like you who have never known real revolution are historically illiterate fools. we will not have a revolution in this country until we are pushed much, much further. and that is a good thing

you don't have the slightest fucking clue of the misery of what a real revolution really is like. i hate the very concept of intellectual property and i hate the plutocracy infecting the country i love. but i am no friend of yours, and the likes of you disgust me far more than chris dodd ever will. at least chris dodd won't lock and load and embrace borderline schizophrenic hollywood addled visions of "glorious" revolutionary bloodshed

fuck you, you gunhappy tool. if we are ever to actually have real fascism in this country, people who think like you, all to ready and happy to grab a gun, will be at the vanguard of this country's collapse into it, guided by demagogues who know all too well how to pull the strings in your ignorant bloodlust drunk mind

revolution means failure you asshole. you are supposed to fix the system, not start shooting people you

have i made my disgust of your ignorant bloodlust clear? then grow the fuck up

no we have assholes who have no clue what real fascism is and water down the real horror of the term by applying it to every minor quibble they have with the idea of authority. see: teenagers calling their parents fascists. see also how the term terrorism is abused and watered down by ignorants and demagogues

You know guns work just as well in the hands of those who mean evil as those who mean good. I don't quite understand this mythological belief that a well armed populace is some sort of protection from fascism. If fascism ever does come to this country, those at the vanguard of this nation's fall will be well armed "patriots" whipped into a xenophobic frenzy by a silver tongued demagogue.

When domestic matters are settled by guns rather than words, the country is lost. Therefore, to depend on guns or look forward to their use means you are part of the problem: you've already given up on your country, whether you realize that or not.

America wont survive a revolution. The moment people start thinking like this is the moment people who ARE corrupt and are in seats of power at the moment can claim even more power on the grounds of insurgants, terrorists, and rebels are trying to corrupt our pure country. They'll ride their white horse and smear any sort of truth that can be mustered to bring people to the cause and then with their new claimed power they will strike back with the full force of military aid at their disposal and they have a lot of that currently.

People armed with guns can't retake our country. This is a long cry from the civil war where all you had to do was pick up a musket and you'd be on relatively equal terms with the foe you're facing. They have military and strategic dominance on every level, not to mention they can do all sorts of underhanded things to make everyone involved disappear. I do believe such soldiers may turn sides, but it's highly unlikely. They country in and of itself has become too powerful to take back by a common citizen with a rifle. Such a imbalance of power would lead to an extremely bloody conflict with the people without it getting slaughtered in droves attempting to take it back from people with it. The american zeitgeist isn't ready for such a conflict either. We have too many differing opinions to split things down the middle and we easily get bored of things when it doesn't involve everyone dying around us.

This is completely putting aside how it will turn the country upside down and leaves us open to people who would never dream of trying to take america going and doing it. You shouldn't think in such short sighted terms. Picking up a weapon and starting to shoot people without any forethought is a bad decision.

You have to change things from the inside, bit by bit, piece by piece. Witch hunts need to be performed and we need something similar to the inquisition that will willingly investigate every part of the system (not the people) and burn the heretics retroactively. It needs to be done peacefully so when the side that gets power hungry and decides to use an iron fist they can be branded as such. So there is a right and wrong, so that the people can understand that one side is fighting for something better then power...

When and IF this happens it will start to signify a new golden age for America, one that is founded on the future rather then making more money then the other person. We need to help each other rather then trying to drive each other in the dirt. Just because the country was founded with capitalism in mind, doesn't mean we need to stay that way. We are much better then that. It's the direction most first world countries are taking and it's the right one.

Small nitpick here: Dodd is not an elected official anymore. So he doesn't have a congressional district. He USED to be, and when he was he fought very hard for the MPAA... and now he has a very well-paying job with them. Shocking, I know.

The Executive Branch delegates that to the Attorney General/US DOJ. Also, I see the lack of comment as a good thing, because if they didn't take this matter seriously, they'd have simply stated it had been dismissed out of hand. In this case though, it seems they do take it seriously.

Keep in mind that no Police Investigation aside from those run by the Keystone Cops starts with a public announcement saying they will investigate.They say they are investigating *after* news outlets like CNN and FOX have reported that a bunch of FBI Agents raided offices and took away records and computers from those offices. Why give Dodd any more opportunity to hide, destroy evidence?

He probably didn't break the law, and that's the sad truth. There's a very fine line, maybe a smudge, between being paid for votes, and being paid because you support a platform. They amount to the same thing, at the end of the day, but one is illegal and the other isn't. What he said on Fox news was probably not illegal either, once put in this framework. It would shake my confidence if I ever had any.

it's almost like what they taught in civics class, just have to add a phrase before each sentence and another after:

those two phrases are "The mega-corporate bitches of" and "for the benefit of the mega-corporations"

1. The corporate bitches of Congress make the laws for the benefit of the mega-corporations

2. The corporate bitches of the executive branch enforce the laws for the benefit of the mega-corporations

3. The corporate bitches of the Supreme Court interpret the laws for the benefit of the mega-corporations

Let's revise the oath of office, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the agenda of the mega-corporations, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the interests of all those mega corporations, so help me Mammon.

people growing up, NOW, can realize this. the internet teaches much more of the truth than the textbooks or teachers (are allowed or will).

we didn't have any kind of internet (not even BBS dialup, at the time) and our means to share info was very local and very limited. we were brought up in near total ignorance. 'trust authority'. all that stuff - that we now know is opposite and untrue.

today, kids DO have the ability to hear more than one side of the story. well, for as long as the internet remains free...

I hope that over the next 20 or so years, this generation weeds out the older guys and pushes thru a new style. I have zero hope for today's old rulers, but tomorrow's rulers could actually be from an informed base.

and sadly, I think the old guys in charge know this, too. they want to milk things as they are for the next 5-25 years, until *they* die out. after that, they don't much care how the world runs. but they do want to keep the world and power base as it is right now.

the struggle is: do we allow that and for how much longer?

this is the class war. its real. its simmering, but its growing, to be sure.

There's a reason teachers don't teach details. It's because very few people can understand all the details of every field. Teachers and textbooks present simplified overviews of a field, so that interested students have a basic level of understanding to move on to further education later.

This applies at every level. An elementary school teacher says "Congress makes laws". A High school teacher says "the committees of the House and Senate make bills, which are passes to become laws". A college professor says "The committees are influenced by lobbyists representing industries and activists who have interest in the bill" and in the real world, a politician finds that the committees are influenced by lobbyists, activists, legal precedent, and international treaties (which are themselves subject to a complicated procedure), and myriad other sources.

This applies to every field. As more casual observers choose not to continue their education in a particular field, the study gets into more complex subjects. Knowing everything about everything is simply not possible today. There are too many fields with too much to know.

Then, there's the Internet, with its vast availability of information. Surely, this will allow everyone to fully understand the complexities and nuances of every field, right? Absolutely not. There are few resources on the Web where one can go to study in adequate depth, and those arcane details are incomprehensible without the prior years of study to understand how all the details work together. Very few people want to devote that much time to studying online, so they'll abandon learning the complexity, and will simply follow the advice of some person or website they trust.

Today, it appears that such trusted websites are predominantly social networks, where people hear the opinions of their peers, read a one-page summary of an issue, and instantly believe themselves qualified to debate it. This is why candidates with simple plans to fix everything get so much support from Internet-based grassroots movements, but can never gather support from the big corporations (who employ economic and political specialists who understand the complex consequences of the simple plans).

People hear that the Federal Reserve Bank loaned out $16 trillion dollars without any special announcement, and they start rallying against the Fed for this policy of handing out money to banks. They flock to Ron Paul's banner, calling to eliminate the Federal Reserve Bank. The real story is that the $16 trillion figure was the cumulative total of one-day loans, meaning that a $100 loan for one month would be recorded as $3000, even though only $100 was loaned out, and $100 was paid back.

The people in charge now understand the complexities of their fields, and the people in charge in the future will continue to understand the complexities of their fields. Hopefully, they will continue to ignore the uninformed masses, and take their short-sighted quick-fix plans with significant doses of salt.

This is not to say that the Internet is useless. There is great potential for legitimate change to be effected via websites like the EFF's, where organizations with particular (and publicly-stated) goals can state their view on an issue, and the masses can donate their voice (by way of a petition signature and/or a monetary donation) to support the experts of the organization, who do understand the complexities involved.

A group of people demands that a well known politician turned lobbyist get investigated for bribery. They know that they are all guilty of a little quid pro quo themselves so in order to save their own asses and job prospects after they leave office they don't investigate.
This angers me though. I had high hopes for Obama forcing lobbyists to clean up their act, but he hasn't delivered. I was planning on voting for him simply because the Republican policies of ignoring science and cutting everything down to the bone disturb me, but now I think I'm going to vote third party.

If you're over 35, you can run yourself. Everyone in the country over 35 and who meets the other requirements is running all the time - you can vote for any of them by writing their name in.

Don't throw your vote away by voting for a fictional character, at least vote for someone who, on the mad chance that enough others vote the same way, is actually eligible to serve. Or at the very least, is a person who exists and can produce reasonable facsimiles of the necessary documents after two and a half years.

The correct request for a petition would be to impeach Dodd for high crimes and misdemeanors.

The impeachment process may be triggered by non-members. For example, when the Judicial Conference of the United States suggests a federal judge be impeached, a charge of what actions constitute grounds for impeachment may come from a special prosecutor, the President, a state or territorial legislature, grand jury, or by petition.

Despite that he left office on 3 Jan 2011 and went on to head the MPAA in March 2011, and therefore was not in office, there is precedent for impeaching a government official after leaving office. That precedent is the 1876 case of General William Belknap, who was impeached by a unanimous vote of the House of Representatives shortly after he had resigned for allegedly having received money in return for post tradership appointments (bribery).

The worst part about this petition and the result, is that it will get basically zero media coverage. All of the mainstream news organizations are tied into SOPA and the lobbyists just as tightly as Dodd.

...And the President constitutionally shouldn't be able to make laws that bypass congress, yet they have done it all the time via executive orders. The President shouldn't be able to order the targeted death of US citizens but yet the current president did it just fine. Etc.

Executive Orders aren't laws. As the Executive, it's clear that he has a certain level of authority over the Executive Branch. Executive Orders simply are a mechanism by which the President exercises that Constitutionally granted authority over the Executive Branch.

As the Commander-In-Chief of all U.S. forces, the president is within his authority to order military action against hostile military forces. Doesn't matter that some U.S. citizen has joined those forces. War doesn't stop because there's a traitor in the enemy camp.

There's a clear distinction between a criminal who we should try to arrest if at all possible (and criminals do get killed by cops without a trial in similar circumstances, even on U.S. soil, where they are armed and resisting arrest), and enemy combatants who are engaged in armed conflict against our armed forces.

Darn. If only there were a department we could go to in order to get justice. We could even fill it with lawyers who could prosecute people who broke the law. Put someone in charge of it who people couldn't mess with - like a government official or something.

Its like everything else Obama has done, simple good PR to try to get him reelected. Taking questions via YouTube, holding "town hall" meetings of course none of this really matters, none of it is actually going to change anything its all done to make Obama seem like a nice, up to date president that cares about various issues when in reality all those are is nice good feeling fluff for the Obama campaign.

Nobody will be prosecuted....too many people already say "If so so doesn't vote my way Im not gonna contribute to his campaign." OR "If you support my bill I will contribute to your campaign" the promises are vague and non-specific.

"...if the payments are made in return for an explicit promise or undertaking by the official to perform or not to perform an official act. In such situations the official asserts that his official conduct will be controlled by the terms of the promise or undertaking." McCormick v. United States, 500 U.S. 257 (1991)

On the other hand if Dodd had said "If you support SOPA I will give your campaign $50,000" that would be quid pro quo. A threat to withhold support is not bribery. There has to be an explicit offer or threat. Campaign contributions have a higher standard of proof for bribery allegations than say a private payment.

We don't want a society where the loudest bunch of shrieking zealots can pressure a criminal investigation by the mere weight of numbers. We've elected Obama and he's nominated holder and we've told him there's a big problem. We need to trust them to do the right thing.

You might not like the idea of trusting them, but there isn't a better alternative.

Yes, the responses, when there are responses to whitehouse.gov petitions are usually pretty bad. No, as far as I know no specific policy has been the result of a whitehouse.gov petition. People are frustrated and there is even a petition to take the petitions more seriously.

So what?

The cutoff point for a response to a petition is 25,000 signatures. The Chris Dodd petition was somewhere around 35,000 the last I checked. Would you really want Obama to take decisive actions based on the will of 25-35,000 people? We (the US) are a nation of over 300 million individuals! How much say should a mere 10s of thousands have?

However... 30 some thousand people bothered to sign it. Many probably had to go through the trouble to create accounts showing they cared more than just enough to click a link. Do you think this goes entirely unnoticed among the politicians? Please don't get me wrong, they are not going to suddenly become good. They are still getting all sorts of money and perks legal and otherwise from special interests including the movie and record industries. They can probably count on buying far more than 30,000 votes just by name recognition from the ads they can buy with lobbyist money. They aren't going to just throw that away. But they do know they can't be so bold about it. Elections are never more than 4 years away which means they will be considering both voters and campaign money. If we give up then the only voice they hear is the ones giving them the campaign money.

The world is not going to change because of our little petitions but they will make some small difference. Even if it is only a little subconscious influence on politicians minds as they make decisions in the future that is something.

I guess they can only comment on things that do not involve "specific law enforcement action". I imagine that promises a response to
a) Disclose all government communication with extra-terrestrials (I saw that petition at 8000 votes a while ago) and
b) Debate about holiday vs Christmas tree

But that's just the thing, you're being intimidated into NOT voting.
THIS is what is exploited to get certain people into power, scaring people and making it so they don't actually vote, scaring them into not voting so that corporate interests and greed can take over.

It's people like you that have effectively sat back and let the MAFIAA take over our nation.

Honestly, this is the weakest argument not to vote for Obama. Out of all of the things that he's done, you pick something most likely written by a mid-level bureaucrat instead of all of the things Obama has personally done to screw up integrity in our government such as not closing Guantanamo bay, starting another war, keeping the Federal Reserve rather than abolishing it, ordering the killing of a US citizen, etc.

Being a elected official in the US is extremely lucrative with lots of 'gifts' and 'free' vacations from friends and supporters after they have finished serving their terms, highly paid jobs within industries they 'regulated', highly paid jobs with companies that got legislated overpriced no-bid contracts, highly paid lobbying jobs that take advantage of their access, and a rate of return on investments 60% higher than market average (and about 20% higher than average RoR with insider trading). Simply because the payoff is delayed doesn't mean that it isn't happening and because it is so well known about nobody ever has to actually make an agreement for the bribery because the politician takes the lead knowing that if they behave in a particular way that they are guaranteed a lucrative result.

One of the reasons that other countries look at the US with horror is how blatant and openly corrupt your government officials are. In Canada the governing party for over 40 years fell and was replaced over a scandal directing work to a company that supported the Liberal party. The total amount was under $2 million dollars over 8 years which is less than every single representative and senator directs to supporters each and every budget. Even the most ethical politician on the national stage is wildly corrupted and should be charged and imprisoned.